Deserted by his wife, Sir Austin Feverel raises his only son Richard according to a strict scientific System designed to keep him safe from women until the right moment. Then Richard meets Lucy Desborough, a farmer’s niece, by the river, and the System and the young man’s heart go to war.
Meredith’s first great novel, from 1859, at once comic, lyrical and searching about fathers and sons. Download the free EPUB.